In the previous essay I asked why some 400 years ago Iai would have been developed at all given that there appears to be no justifiable rationale for it as part of combat training—something that I demonstrated in another previous essay in this series.
I proposed that the true purpose of Iai was as part of a highly sophisticated method—the Method, as I call it in this series—and that the Method also explained why the warrior schools that originated Iai relied so heavily—if not entirely—upon often highly unrealistic, pre-arranged partner forms for developing combat skills.
The purpose of this Method was quite simply to teach the samurai exponents of these schools how to use Hara during combat.
The problems with explaining what Hara is were addressed in the previous essay, but far more importantly, I provided a summary of why these warriors—or any warriors—would want to use Hara…
Hara counteracts the many stressors encountered during close-quarter combat. This is crucial since these same stressors reduce combat effectiveness and therefore also make it more likely that a warrior will be either seriously injured or be killed. Consequently, Hara ultimately provides the warrior with the invaluable ability to avoid all these performance degrading effects.
However, as useful as that ability was/is, it is not the only way Hara and the Method benefited the warrior! Hara also allowed the warrior to enter a combat with a better understanding (through experience gained in training) of its realities, and also with enhanced decision-making, athleticism and awareness of their environment.
How did/does Hara make all this possible? By changing the warrior’s intellectual, emotional, sensory and hormonal response to combat-related stressors.
In the previous essay I started explaining how the Method achieves its purpose of teaching students how to use Hara during combat…
The primary requirement is that the student develops Hara Awareness, however this Awareness must be of sufficient quality and resilience.
Hara Awareness is achieved through the interaction of two processes:
A. Creating the Right Context within the student, with the components of the Right Context being:
The student’s attitude
Hara breathing
Fixation upon the environment
B. Resolving/Handling the Obstacles/Disruptors that prevent the achieving and maintaining of Hara Awareness. These Obstacles/Disruptors fall into 4 types:
Intellectual Activity
The Amount of Intellectual Activity
Emotion
Sensory information
Overwhelmingly, the tool used to Resolve/Handle these Obstacles/Disruptors are Appropriate Activities.
The 3 Categories of Appropriate Activities are:
Category 1: Solo Static
Category 2: Solo Movement
Category 3: Prescribed Partner-based Movement
The greater the number and Intensity of Obstacles/Disruptors that an Appropriate Activity emphasizes, the more Difficult it is in the context of the Method.
Now, as I explained in the previous essay (see the section titled “Combat Stressors as Obstacle/Disruptors”), Obstacles/Disruptors determine the level of Difficulty in an Appropriate Activity, but those same factors that serve as Obstacles/Disruptors are also what serve as Stressors in actual combat, namely (as just listed):
Intellectual Activity
The Amount of Intellectual Activity
Emotion
Sensory information
Therefore, the higher an Appropriate Activity’s level of Difficulty the closer it comes to reflecting and/or mimicking those Stressor-based challenges found during the medieval close-quarter combat which the Method is attempting to teach management of.
Consequently, the ultimate goal of the Method is to eventually make Appropriate Activities so Difficult for the student that they come close to, or possibly occasionally even achieves parity with, the Stressors found in combat.
As I said at the end of Part 1, this essay will aim to explain several things related to this ultimate goal:
1. How the Method can promote these extremely high levels of Difficulty.
2. How the Method mitigates the potential for great physical and/or mental damage that high levels of Difficulty brings.
3. The reasons for all the formal aspects of Iai kata.
1. How the Method can promote extremely high levels of Difficulty.
Can the Method really provide training that is so Difficult that it can come even close to replicating combat, either in terms of combat’s physical demands or its psychological demands?
The short answer is, yes.
At least that’s my assumption from my 44 years of experience with the Method and also my related academic research—but with the caveat that I have never been in combat.
How the Method achieves such high levels of Difficulty is through the interplay of three main Elements—which is to say, none of these Elements can on their own achieve the levels of Difficulty being discussed here…
Element A:
Variations on Appropriate Activities that increase Difficulty.
In the previous essay I said that Variations often increase an Appropriate Activity’s level of Difficulty, and I provided a single example to illustrate this:
Practicing the Category 1 Appropriate Activity of Standing, but doing so while as high up on one’s toes as possible and with the arms raised horizontally in front.
However, while this Variation represents a significant increased level of Difficulty both in its own right and massively more so while attempting to apply the Right Context, obviously it is not even remotely close the near-combat-level of Difficulty I am claiming Variations can sometimes rise to.
To explain how this level of Difficulty may nonetheless be possible, the following is a list of potential Variation Types that either individually or when combined can increase the Difficulty of an Appropriate Activity—with the caveat that not all of these can be applied to ALL Appropriate Activities…
Technical Variations:
Dexterity
Bio-mechanical challenges
Balance requirements
Physical effort/strain
Making sounds/noises
Movements
Environmental Variations:
Weather—mild to extreme levels of wind, rain, humidity, heat/cold.
Ambient noise level—ranging from silence to ear-shattering.
Light levels—from reduced light to zero light, also patchy differences in light level.
Physical obstacles/hindrances.
Poor/unsure/restricted footing—slippery, uneven, spongy
Water—whether beneath and/or in it.
Training intensity Variations:
Speed of movement
Changing the cadences—shortening reaction/response times.
Outward/visible expressions of aggression/intent
Consequently, because of the above Variation Types, the “on the toes” Variation described earlier represents really just the tip-of-the-iceberg in terms of not only the diversity of Variations, but also the level of Difficulty they can promote.
For instance, what if you were to attempt the “on-the-toes” Variation while on the edge of a ledge 10 foot off the ground, so that your heels—as well as all but your toes and arms—had nothing beneath them but a significant drop? And what if you were to do this while repeating a chant and while using a technique to come up on your toes—and remain there—that was extremely biomechanically challenging?
And what if you were to practice Iai outside in a severe rain storm, with a razor-sharp blade, while blindfolded?
Or how about doing 10 minutes of weapon-based, partner forms/kata with great intent, with no breaks at all between each form and no formal beginning or ending sequences, and doing so while on a densely forested hillside?
Element B:
Design of Category 3 Appropriate Activities
As previously explained both here and in the previous essay, Category 3 Appropriate Activities are Prescribed Partner-based Movements—or Forms.
Certainly, integrating any combination of the Variation Types just mentioned can ramp up the Difficulty level of these prescribed Partner-based Movements. However, the Design of these Forms can also greatly further enhance the Difficulty—both in of themselves and even more so when Variations are applied.
What do I mean by the Design of these Forms?
Basically, Design is the choice of techniques involved and the relationships between them—this relationship being created in part by the order in which these techniques are performed.
But this simple definition belies the complexity and sophistication that is often present—albeit frequently hidden—in these Form’s Design—and this most definitely includes Iai Design, by the way.
It is extremely important to note that the Design of these Forms is not necessarily constrained by the need to literally reflect combat since their primary purpose is to assist in raising the level of Difficulty, and as I explained above and in the previous essay…
The factors that determine Difficulty in Appropriate Activities are comparable—either literally or effectively—to those factors found in actual combat that serve as Stressors.
These factors being, again:
Intellectual activity
The Amount of Intellectual Activity
Emotion
Sensory Information
That is not to say that the Design of a Category 3 Forms won’t potentially be in some respects combat-literal, because they often will. This is because even partially literal depictions are often not only useful to raising the Difficulty level of the Form, but are also helpful in many ways in a warrior’s general preparation for combat.
However, “combat-literal” encompasses a very wide range of likelihoods! Category 3 Forms may incorporate scenarios that while not being impossible during a combat may be anything from uncommon to virtually impossible. There can be multiple reasons for practicing (thousands of times) actions that the warrior is probably not going to encounter in combat, but the action’s usefulness to the Method (specifically with respect to Difficulty) may well have been the prime motivation for its inclusion in the Form.
To illustrate how a “virtually impossible” action can be useful both in terms of a warrior’s “general preparation” and to the Method, I will again use a version of a rather flamboyant example from a Karato Ryu spear-vs-sword Form:
With the swordsman already within attacking distance, the spearman turns his back and takes several quick steps away from his opponent. Taking the bait, the swordsman advances rapidly on his vulnerable opponent in order to perform an attack. At the same time the spearman suddenly turns and delivers his own attack before the swordsman can complete his.
The rub is that the faster the swordsman advances on the spearman the more pressure he puts on the spearman and the more likely it is that the spearman will not have the time to attack before the swordsman is in range
But, at the same time, if the spearman is able to attack before the swordsman can, then the swordsman’s momentum will make it very difficult for him to modify his attack into the prescribed block.
So, for many reasons this sequence is never going to literally occur in a combat. However, the themes of vulnerability (both perceived and real) and how to recognize and exploit it are most certainly essential to a warrior’s prowess. Also, the sequence requires/develops essential combat-athletic attributes (speed, timing, distance perception, agility). However, because of the elements of vulnerability and athleticism and because the levels of both increase as the skill of the participants increases, the sequence can also represent a very high level of Difficulty.
Less theatrical examples of this relationship between general combat training and the requirements of the Method (specifically achieving very high levels of Difficulty) are actions such as where the Form’s Design gives one or both participants:
Only a very short time to react to an attack
No opportunity to counter an attack and participant(s) must depend on the skill/control of their partner to not strike them.
Allowing more than one option in terms of what attack is used and/or the reaction to an attack.
(This list is in no way meant to be comprehensive, rather its purpose is simply to illustrate the concept of how the Design of a Category 3 Form can be motivated by the Method’s need to increase Difficulty)
Element C:
Applying Breaking Free during Category 3 Forms
So, both the Design of the Category 3 Partner Forms and applying Variations to these Forms can increase Difficulty, but of greatest importance to increasing the Difficulty level of Category 3 Forms is practicing them while in an esoteric state of mind that I refer to as Breaking Free.
I devoted an entire essay in this series to the topic of Breaking Free, and in that essay said of Breaking Free that, “I believe it is—from a martial perspective—the single most important reason for Iai practice.”
This seems on the surface to be a rather curious statement given that I have explained at length (and indisputably) how Iai is of very little use from the perspective of combat training—even with the presence of Breaking Free, and its ability to transform Iai into a thrilling experience of threats and urgency.
However, the massive, MARTIAL importance of Breaking Free comes not from its impact on Iai but from its application during the Category 3 Forms—the magnitude of this impact being hard to overstate!
For those readers who haven’t read the Breaking Free essay I strongly suggest reading both it and the one after it before proceeding here. This recommendation is because I am unable to provide a concise explain of what Breaking Free is/isn’t and so the essays will help the reader to understand the following section.
How Breaking Free increases the Difficulty of a Category 3 Partner Form
There are several, inter-connected reasons why Breaking Free considerably increases the Difficulty of Category 3 Forms practice.
First, the primary effect of Breaking Free is that the student doesn’t consciously predict actions within the Form being practiced. Consequently, to the student it seems like a coincidence that the actions they chose ended up—typically—basically following those of the Form.
This phenomenon alone greatly enhances the Form’s Difficulty because—to put it simply—the student does not know what action is coming next. The vulnerability and uncertainty this promotes being potentially exacerbated greatly by both the Design of the Form and any Variations present.
The second reason why Breaking Free considerably increases the Difficulty of Category 3 Forms practice is because—as when applied during Iai—practice becomes considerably more physically strenuous.
As I said in the Breaking Free essay LINK this is primarily because during typical Forms practice,
“there will be some degree of “wind-up” before an action begins and also a premature, physical preparation for the end of each action.
However, the wind-up between the decision to begin an action and that action occurring is greatly (relatively speaking) reduced and leads to an action that is far more explosive in nature.
“Going from ‘zero to sixty’ very rapidly will typically increase the muscular effort required throughout the action, because it takes greater effort to maintain control of the action and because when it comes time to slam on the brakes the body is typically still accelerating—in addition those brakes will be applied later since there is no anticipation of either the end of the action or the action that will follow. ”
However, greater physical effort is also caused by the third reason why Breaking Free increases Difficulty: Breaking Free promotes greater Intent.
With more intent, a student’s attacks are typically more powerful and faster, and that leads to much shorter reaction times and the need for faster responses—which means there will be a far greater likelihood that actions will go off-script and impromptu adaptations needed.
Thus, in terms of both the athleticism and the physical effort required, Breaking Free makes Category 3 Forms practice roughly comparable to intense sparring.
Where this comparison fails is in the student’s perception of the practice: Breaking Free allows the student to “forget” to varying degrees, in various ways that what they are doing is PRACTICE and perceive it more like an actual combat—hence the aforementioned increase in Intent…
The fellow student they are facing in the Form is no longer perceived as a comrade, rather they are simply the target and the attacker. Also, wooden practice weapons become as intimidating as their bladed versions and the attacks from these wooden weapons are, therefore, as concerning as if they actually could severe a limb or penetrate one’s body.
Incidentally, this all leads to a profound understanding and appreciation of armor—and a sincere desire to wear some during partner Forms practice.
The practicality of Breaking Free:
Breaking Free’s schedule.
While Breaking Free is hugely important and useful, does the length of time it takes to learn how to consistently apply it to Category 3 Forms training make it impractical for the warrior-student?
I’ve only been able to consistently apply Breaking Free in Iai for “7 years” (as I said in the Breaking Free essay a few years ago), and even now after about 44 years of training, “I can typically only maintain Breaking Free for about the first 15 minutes of iai practice, and then it begins to lapse with greater and greater frequency.”
With this time frame, might not a warrior-student of the Method have had to face combat way before they had learned how to apply Breaking Free? It seems like Breaking Free would be of no use except to the very aging warrior—if they were even able to live that long!
The first thing to consider here is my own circumstances, learning schedule and skills…
To start with, I was, and am, a really bad student in terms of my ability to progress in the Method. Yes, it is true that even as a teenager I was extremely self-disciplined and dedicated to training, but I have been greatly hampered with respect to the Method by my artistic nature, my powerful imagination, my intellectualism and borderline-autistic level of sensory dysfunction.
Secondly, to compound my lack of suitability, I have not engaged in advanced partner training for decades and this has probably slowed my progress further.
So, my conclusion from my own history and attributes is that the typical warrior-student of the Method is/was likely not only to be able to consistently experience Breaking Free in Iai and also Category 3 Forms practice much sooner than I could, but they also would be able to maintain the Breaking Free state of mind for longer periods than me.
However, focusing on the ability to maintain Breaking Free “consistently” is almost irrelevant in terms of the practicality of Breaking Free.
This is because while I cannot say it is impossible that a student will first experience Breaking Free during Iai in long, unbroken stretches of time, the reality is that almost invariably it will be through the shortest of bursts that Breaking Free will first appear during Iai practice.
But it is crucial to understand that these bursts of Breaking Free during Iai will be enough to serve as a guide to how to manifest Breaking Free in Cat 3 Forms practice. And that while Breaking Free in Cat 3 Forms will also initially be only for very brief periods, during those times they will however serve to greatly increase the Difficulty level of—at least—the part(s) of the Form in which they appear.
Consequently, to summarize, even though it may take decades for a student of the Method to be able to generate Breaking Free throughout a Category 3 Partner Form, the typical student will first begin to experience the briefest periods of Breaking Free within the first decade of their training. As such, while learning to generate Breaking Free is still a relatively lengthy process it is practical for most warrior-students.
It should be noted here that it is not as if a student of the Method is totally unprepared for combat prior to the appearance of Breaking Free: the Design of Forms and the manner in which they are practiced, not to mention the psychological impact of the required intensive study of Hara-focused breathing will imbue the student with basic physical and mental combat skills.
Another aspect of Breaking Free’s practicality that should be discussed is the level of danger it creates, but since that topic also falls into the purview of the next of the 3 main sections of this essay, we will discuss it there…
2. How the Method mitigates the potential for great physical and/or mental damage that high levels of Difficulty brings.
Danger levels while Breaking Free
Due to Variations, clearly many Appropriate Activities from the first 2 Categories can become quite dangerous. However, with a few exceptions, Category 3 Appropriate Activities (Partner-based Forms) present an even greater risk due to their Design and this is especially so when Breaking Free is present.
So, with the addition of Breaking Free do Partner-based Forms then become too dangerous? Don’t advanced students of the Method inevitably get seriously injured or worse?
It might appear that way, and yet despite receiving and inflicting countless minor injuries, I have never been seriously hurt, and my instructor claimed that such occurrences were to his knowledge very rare.
How could this be so? Basically, because generally advanced Category 3 Forms practice isn’t really quite AS dangerous as it seems…
I said in the Breaking Free essay LINK that Breaking Free requires great mental discipline and control. And in the Imposing Threat essay LINK I said that, “in our partner training, while I typically feel distinctly uncomfortable/vulnerable/at risk during it, I am able to remain intellectually dispassionate/objective. Consequently, the challenges of the kata [Form] never translate into tension, or angst, or stress, and so there is neither an adrenal response nor (apparently) any resulting psychological ‘baggage’.”
So being “intellectually dispassionate/objective” and also being entirely “in the moment” (an essential requirement of Breaking Free and discussed in the previous essay) results in the student being hyper-aware of the dangerous nature of what is happening during the practice, but without this awareness resulting in fear or any other emotion or intellectual activity disturbing their psychological equilibrium.
Therefore, hyper-awareness coupled with objectivity is part of the reason why students applying Breaking Free are able to exhibit immense physical control at every moment during Category 3 Forms practice.
There are two other factors that make this control possible…
First, there is the absence of adrenaline that I mentioned in a previous essay in this series:
“That said, hara-development—and possibly also the residual effects of a persistent, prolonged study of abdominal breathing that is a prerequisite to real hara-development—does make the release of high levels of adrenaline extremely difficult! So difficult that I can honestly say that it has been decades since I last experienced the effects of adrenaline—despite the often extremely dangerous nature of much of Karato Ryu’s training and many other events in my personal and professional life that would be expected to result in an adrenal reaction.”
Secondly, because Breaking Free takes years to achieve, prior to its appearance the student experiences a considerable amount of progressively more intense training, during which they learn how to control themselves and their weapons physically.
The end result of all this is that while any (or all) of a Form’s actions can be perceived by the student as unpredicted, during these actions the student has complete physical control over the action; from the decision to instigate it, to the moment it is completed. Consequently, the student can adapt their action to any unscripted events they encounter whether they be minor or massive.
But what of the aforementioned, inherent ramped-up Intent, and also that—as I said—the student perceives their training partner as no more than a target and an aggressor? Surely these factors would make both psychological and physical control very difficult? How does the student suddenly remember that this target/aggressor is a person that they do not wish to harm? Frankly, I have no idea! It is a decision made in the subconscious. All I can say is that I have experienced it countless times.
To conclude this whole section, I will simply say that as odd as it may sound, because of the above factors, the chance of very serious injury during partner training to either a student or the instructor overall actually decreases once Breaking Free is present!
3. The why, how and what of Iai
The majority of what follows is the stand-alone essay I tried to write about 8 years ago, but could not because I found that while Iai in the context of the Method (as I am calling it in this series) seems very straightforward and obvious to me as a longtime student, when I tried to dissect it intellectually it became bafflingly complex.
Consequently, as I attempted to write the original essay it seemed like every sentence required a lengthy explanation about other contributing elements in order or it to be even conceptually understood by an audience.
And so, finally, with 9 Essays Acting as support material, it is possible to offer a relatively succinct explanation for why Iai was created, how it was created and the reasons it looks like it does…
Why Iai exists
As I have explained, Iai is just one of many possible Appropriate Activities that can help advance the goals of the Method, and (as I mentioned earlier and explained in greater detail in the previous essay) like all the other Appropriate Activities, Iai does this by providing a vehicle through which to Resolve and Handle some of the Obstacles/Disruptors that prevent the achieving and maintaining of the Right Context—which in turn is essential for maintaining Hara Awareness during combat.
As such, as a result of my 44 years as a student of the Method, I am absolutely certain if Iai were removed from the Method it would not prevent the Method from succeeding.
However, as with any other SINGLE Category 1 or Category 2 Appropriate Activity, the absence of Iai would almost certainly slow progress in the Method, and thereby lengthen the time it would take a student to be able to sufficiently apply Hara during combat.
Such a slowing in progression would probably be seen as merely undesirable to a modern student, but to a 16th century samurai (roughly the period when Iai is thought to have appeared) the delay could be the difference between life and death on the battlefield!
So, for any samurai striving for the ability to apply Hara during combat, there would have been absolutely no time to waste, and any tool that could hasten the process would have been seized upon.
Hence, the importance (and PURPOSE) of Iai within the Method. While Iai was not essential to developing the ability to use Hara in combat, it was valuable in achieving that goal more quickly.
How Iai exists
Now onto the question of how Iai was created. How would a samurai striving to learn how to apply Hara in combat have known to create something like Iai?
Just as reading these essays will not provide anything but a conceptual understanding of the Purpose of either Iai or the Method and as such these essays are (at best) useless to a student of the Method, conversely, due to the profoundly non-intellectual nature of the Method, achieving a full understanding of Iai does not require ANY written or verbal explanation of Iai.
Similarly, a full understanding of Iai does not even necessarily require any practical experience of Iai, or even an awareness of its existence!
That’s why before such a thing as the Method existed in martial training in Japan, if any 16th century samurai achieved sufficient Hara Awareness they would almost certainly have intuitively recognized that prescribed, individual practice with any weapon in their primary arsenal would assist in further developing their ability to apply Hara in combat.
Additionally, a Hara-Aware samurai would have realized that this type of training could also assist other warrior-students both develop their own Hara Awareness and also their ability to apply it during combat.
But this is predicated upon there being samurai during the period that Iai appeared that possessed sufficient Hara Awareness to see the benefits of Iai and also to formulate it.
How do I know that such Hara Aware samurai actually existed? I don’t, but here’s my reasoning for why it was likely…
First, there is the fact that it is impossible to martially justify both Iai and the form-based methodology of the martial schools founded in that period (which are still in existence) without them having the goal of cultivation of Hara Awareness at their core. Therefore, these schools were created by warriors with sufficient Hara Awareness.
Second, Hara—and the acquiring of Hara Awareness—was an extremely well-known concept that played an integral role in both Buddhism and Taoism and as such was to varying degrees a component of virtually every formalized spiritual path available in 16th century Japan.
Consequently, it would not have been difficult for a samurai to find a teacher that was knowledgeable enough in matters of Hara to guide them to SOME level of Hara Awareness.
However, as I said in the previous essay:
For the purposes of using Hara in combat, a warrior’s Hara Awareness must have reached/obtained a certain quality. Not any old Hara Awareness would/will do the job!
Having Hara Awareness is not in of itself enough to be able to necessarily apply it either in high-stress situations such as combat and/or while maintaining awareness of the environment and/or performing tactically appropriate actions.
Now, some of the formal Paths available to the samurai of this period would have almost certainly involved teaching how to maintain Hara Awareness in real-world activities—albeit less extreme than combat—and for those samurai that were students of these paths, it would not have been impossible for them to eventually expand these teachings into something like the Method I have described.
Additionally, there may have been samurai who were able to make the intuitive leap from stationary (or mostly stationary) Hara Awareness to how to apply this Awareness in combat, without the help of any other teaching.
However, while I believe samurai of either category would have been rare, their existence would have been made even more infrequent because of the requirement of particular personality traits and certain intellectual skills. Which is to say, not every samurai who had acquired the level/quality of Hara Awareness to use it in combat would have had either the inclination or ability to turn this into the Method and/or created a martial school to pass it on.
All these factors would perhaps explain why those early martial schools that I am claiming utilized the Method were apparently extremely uncommon, and therefore trained only a very small—perhaps, tiny—fraction of the samurai.
How the form of Iai acts to achieve its Purpose
When a typical Iai syllabus as it exists today is assessed objectively by someone who understands close-quarters combat it appears to be extremely ill-suited to serve as a training tool for any of the combat-scenarios relevant to a samurai of the period!
First, in terms of the time Iai takes to practice, the majority is spent at the beginning and at the end doing non-combat-related things.
Next, the combat-related actions that are practiced are few in number both in terms of their variety and how often they are repeated.
Further, to varying degrees the actions, though combat-related, are typically not very applicable to actual combat.
Additionally, Iai frequently involves aspects that were socially and/or militarily abnormal for the period.
So, how then does Iai achieve those things that I have just said were its Purpose?
Which is to say, how do the formal structure and physical characteristics of Iai achieve the goals of any Appropriate Activity?
(Again, these goals being to promote the Resolve/Handle process and promote and test the Right Context)
The influence of Difficulty on Iai’s form
As I said in the previous essay, there are different Categories of Appropriate Activity because each of the 3 Categories is—broadly speaking—different from the other two in terms of how Difficult they are to perform in the context of the Method.
Therefore, like all Category 1 and Category 2 Appropriate Activities, Iai is fundamentally a stepping-stone to the partner-based training that is the defining aspect of all Category 3 Appropriate Activities, rather than a way to teach sword fighting per se—even though in the context of the Method it can be somewhat useful in this regard.
So, Iai has to function as an easier (less Difficult) way than Category 3 Appropriate Activities to achieve these goals.
And as discussed in the previous essay, to be “easier” (less Difficult) than Category 3 Appropriate Activities, Iai must emphasize fewer Obstacles/Disruptors, and those Obstacles/Disruptors it does emphasize must have a lower level of Intensity
And since all Category 2 Appropriate Activities (Variations notwithstanding) also had to be more Difficult than Category 1 Appropriate Activities, Iai had to be roughly and generally like the proverbial porridge: neither too hot nor too cold—from the perspective of Difficulty.
(The use of Variations during Iai (as already discussed in some detail in the previous essay and above) make this relationship considerably more complex, but it does not change Iai’s fundamental role with respect to relative Difficulty)
When this need for Iai to generally have a specific, relative level of Difficulty (Variations notwithstanding) is understood then the reasons for many of Iai’s basic formal elements and characteristics that otherwise make little-to-no practical sense, become obvious—in deed, to quote Morpheus from the second Matrix movie, it could be said, “What happened, happened and couldn’t have happened any other way”!
How then does Iai control its level of Difficulty?
Predominantly by limiting both the amount of physical coordination required and the level of technical complexity and consequently the amount of sensory and intellectual distraction it promotes.
This is achieved through several of Iai’s basic formal elements..
Iai overwhelmingly only involves the katana, even though (as I said earlier) the primary Purpose is not to teach sword-fighting prowess specifically and nothing in the term Iai suggests that it must involve the use of any specific weapon, or even any weapon at all.
One good reason for choosing the katana is the low level of manual dexterity that is required to use it—which means lower Difficulty.
Unlike with a staff, using a katana doesn’t involve shifting the position of the hand(s) and only one end of the weapon is used so there is no pulling and/or sliding required—I realize the pommel of a katana can be used as a weapon, but scenarios where this is a preferable/practical choice are rare.
That said, a shortsword or potentially even a medium-to-long length spear require not only less dexterity to use than a katana but less complex technique overall, plus, the spear was actually the preferred weapon in the battlefield.
So why doesn’t Iai use either of these weapons?
First, because there is another Difficulty-reducing-related reason to favor the longsword—one that I will go into a little later.
Second, there is the not-to-be-underestimated cultural/symbolic value of the longsword as a reflection (and reinforcement) of the importance and power of the samurai. This is also probably one of the main reasons why the longsword gets a disproportionate amount of attention in many extant period martial schools given that it was not the go-to battlefield weapon, being relatively ineffective against armored opponents. (For more on this topic see this essay)
Another way Difficulty in iai is reduced is through the small number of actions a kata requires.
Many would argue that the reason behind this is simply because a combat would have very few actions before it was resolved. This perspective is typically the result of ignorance of combat realties, bolstered by the extremely unrealistic (though equally appealing) “ideal” often promoted in Japanese sword arts that with sufficient skill in timing and tactics “one cut, one kill” is perfectly achievable.
However, as I said in this essay try achieving the level of athleticism and tactical awareness “one cut, one kill” requires even during fast-paced freeplay/sparring, let alone where you are in any mortal danger, and the folly of training as if it were a practical option becomes obvious.
No, the reason for the short duration of Iai kata is simply because as I said in the previous essay LINK, it is extraordinarily hard to be “in the moment” during Iai for more than the briefest of periods, and therefore it is equally hard to maintain the Right Context and therefore also Breaking Free and Imposing Threat.
Consequently, in the context of the Method the more actions an Iai kata contains and the longer it goes on the more Difficult it generally becomes and the less useful it is likely to be for anyone but a very advanced student.
Part-and-parcel of all this is that the more actions there are in an iai kata the progressively harder it is going to be to maintain the particular mindset required to take aggressive actions during close-combat—something that for psychological reasons (as I explained in this essay) is generally extremely hard to do and especially so where sharp weapons are involved.
However, the shortness of Iai kata is not the only formal device Iai employs to help with the practicing of aggressive actions
For most warriors a significant Obstacle/Disruptor to achieving and maintaining the required mindset–one either devoid of or at the least having barely any introspective analysis/thought, emotion, imagination or sensory awareness—is the knowledge that their attack is (if successful) going to kill or maim their opponent.
It might seem that in the heat of combat it would not be difficult to take actions to kill an enemy. But research has shown that this is not necessarily the case at all and especially when the enemy is right in front of you and the killing requires not a pulling of a trigger but the physical effort of penetrating the enemy’s flesh and/or smashing their bones.
Simply, as I mentioned in previous essays and is backed-up by modern research, for most people killing another human being when they are right in front of you is far from easy when compassion, empathy and concepts such as morality are present.
Iai helps the student/warrior to Resolve/Handle these potentially significant Obstacles/Disruptors by utilizing in Iai kata impractically and unrealistically large attacks.
And by large, I don’t just mean in terms of the amount of physical movement they require but also the amount of time they consequently take to perform.
Attacks are often made from a high posture, or even with the blade at the rear and also often involve taking whole steps forward or backward and/or a large wind-up through the raising and/or folding-back of the sword prior to the attack.
For a number of reasons, large movements such as these are rarely realistic or practical in combats.
As I said in a previous essay:
“It might be seductive to believe that sword combats against skilled opponents can be won through pronounced cuts (and nothing as crude as a simple block), but the reality is likely to be very different. Large actions (including those with large steps backward or forward) take a relatively long time to perform and in a combat it is extremely unlikely that the luxury of such time would be available—not to mention that large movements tend to leave you vulnerable to attack during their employment.”
Additionally, the uncertainty of the ground under a warrior’s feet could frequently exacerbate the disadvantages of large movements, with this being especially so during battle—for more detail on this I suggest my video on the topic: https://youtu.be/w_gMNE_bxQA
Once again, the reader may argue that with correct timing and sufficient tactical skill the practicality/realism of these large actions is revealed, but once again I would counter that there is scant evidence from combats that this can be anything but very, very occasionally valid, and that attempting such actions is far more likely to result in negative consequences for the attacker.
Therefore, in reality, attacks are most frequently going to come from a position where the sword is pointed towards (fending off!) the enemy and will involve the minimum of wind-up. This means that thrusts and short sliding attacks are most common—with this being especially so in armored combat.
How then do these large attacks make Iai less Difficult?
During solo practice especially, the larger an attack is the more profoundly obvious becomes both its murderous purpose and the aforementioned vulnerability that accompanies it. For the observer this is mostly due to the unambiguous appearance of the action, however for the one performing the action the nature and consequences of the action are also felt, and this feeling increases the more adept the performer is at the interconnected skills/traits of Merging, Imposing Threat and Breaking Free.
Unfortunately, it is beyond me to explain further why it is significantly less Difficult to practice taking aggressive/murderous attacks during large attacks. All I can say is that in my experience any student of the Method will eventually experience the fundamental truth of it.
Incidentally, this relationship between the size of a technique and the perception of its combative purpose is enhanced by the use of the longsword—as opposed to the shortsword or spear—and this is therefore the other reason I alluded to earlier for making the katana central to Iai.
And the utmost importance of developing and practicing the vital ability of being able to take aggressive/murderous actions also explains other elements of Iai…
It is why Iai overwhelmingly lacks purely defensive actions (blocks), even though another reality of close-combat with sharp weapons is that most actions will be mostly defensive,
Likewise, it is why there are so few thrusts and even fewer sliding cuts, and—to my knowledge—no draw cuts at all.
It is also probably why Iai attacks are so frequently aimed toward areas that would be protected on an armored opponent and why so few of the many targets that are viable against an unarmored opponent are aimed for.
So, to summarize, in Iai the student in part learns to be able to maintain Hara Awareness while taking aggressive/murderous actions in a combat through the practice of attacks that would be both rare in a combat and are to varying degrees impractical. And indeed, this approach is very frequently carried over into the partner Forms of the extant period schools.
Such a method for teaching combat preparation would be absurd if it weren’t for the fact that in the context of the Method the impractical/unrealistic nature of these attacks quickly becomes profoundly obvious to the student, and so they serve the extremely valuable role of teaching them what they can’t and shouldn’t do in a combat.
Where Iai appears to be more Difficult than it needs to be.
I have covered characteristics/elements of Iai that reduce the level of Difficulty, however Iai at times seems to be deliberately and unnecessarily more Difficult than it has to be.
The most obvious examples of this phenomenon are the drawing and sheathing sections.
As I have explained in the previous essays, both the time leading up to the drawing of the weapon and also throughout its sheathing are extremely challenging because it is so difficult for the student’s mind to stay “in the moment”.
Why then do many Iai kata require some kind of pre-amble to the drawing of the sword, and why do all schools of iai include lengthy sheathing sequences?
Both drawing the sword and sheathing it are considerably more technically challenging than the actions that take place between them. And, as I have said before, it is extremely unlikely that a samurai would ever have to draw their weapon in a manner that simultaneously leads to an offensive action, and the flourish of the blade prior to sheathing is entirely artificial and therefore unnecessary since it won’t actually remove any blood on it.
Additionally, again as previously discussed Results combat LINK, the drawing and sheathing of the blades take far longer than the sequence of combative actions between them and so greatly reduce the number of times they can be practiced during a training session.
The answer to the riddle is actually quite simple—although, once again, it is devilishly hard to explain—and somewhat changes based on the student’s moment-by-moment progress in the Method…
The pre-draw and sheathing periods are extremely useful simply because there is no requirement to take explicitly aggressive actions and so in that respect they are less Difficult than the body of the kata. And so, these periods can serve as sort-of dynamic Category 1 Appropriate Activities.
However, the relative physical, technical complexity of drawing the sword and also the sheathing of it, plus the previously discussed psychological challenges that these periods present (with respect to being “in the moment”) actually frequently make them the most Difficult parts of Iai!
Simply, the pre-draw, the draw and the sheathing, while of course being fundamentally linked in terms of the Method to the aggressive actions that make up the middle of an Iai kata, nonetheless serve a rather different—but no less necessary—“technical” purpose.
Once this purpose is understood so too then are other otherwise curious elements to many Iai kata, such as taking a step or multiple steps (AKA walking) before drawing and then making that draw to a different direction and/or the kata requiring other radical changes of direction.
It is true that draws and sheathing sequences are often more challenging than they strictly speaking need to be.
One reason for this can be the character of the kata’s creator. I hope that these essays—especially the last one LINK –have conveyed that each student’s progression in the Method will be unique given the complex, “nuanced process/interplay/relationship” between the Right Context and the Resolving/Handling process and that each student will have their own unique “psycho-physical (and experiential) make-up” and will therefore each require different experiences and different challenges and different combinations of challenges in order to make progress in the Method.
By which I mean, while everybody has Obstacles/Disruptors, the degree to which each one effects the individual and the manner in which they interact is different for everybody.
Consequently, anyone who created a system of Iai could reflect in that system (deliberately or unconsciously) their own particular requirements with respect to their own Obstacle/Disruptor “profile”.
For example, the creator may have been especially sensitive to visual distractions and so he/she might have chosen to incorporate draws or sheathing actions where the point of the sword passes unnecessarily (and even dangerously) close to the student’s eyes—thus requiring more technical skill to perform.
Of course, the influence of the creator’s perception of what is required of Iai didn’t need to be limited to the draw and sheathing sections: it could also be expressed/revealed during the explicitly combat-related, middle of a kata.
So, a creator of Iai could make their kata more Difficult in any respect because they considered it necessary as a result of their own unique Obstacle/Disruptor profile.
However, they might also choose to increase the Difficulty through a desire for their Iai to fulfill other goals in addition to (but not separate from) those Method-related, with the manner in which they did/do this also potentially being influenced by their unique profile.
Examples of these “other goals” were mentioned in the previous essay, but could include an increased athletic requirement in terms of agility and coordination; a greater emphasis on bio-mechanics; enhanced physical conditioning and muscle development—which is another reason potentially for those overly large movements discussed earlier, incidentally.
Conclusion
As I have described it in these essays, Iai is a truly amazing tool when taught in the context of the Method; one that is not only extremely fulfilling but can provide literally life-changing experiences and understanding.
And yet, scour the internet, read every book on Iai, ask any Iai master or student and it is virtually a dead certainty that nowhere will you be able to find even an awareness of what I have been describing in these essays as the Secrets of Iai.
Why is this so?
Simply, because modern Iai exponents appear to have at the absolute best the very barest understanding of Hara, and therefore cannot begin to follow the Method or experience any of the Secrets.
Why this is the case was going to be the topic of a final essay in this series. However, the reasons why are very close—if not identical—to the reasons why many ancient martial arts have been similarly re-imagined to the point where they have little of their original utility.
Examples of this would be every one of the other surviving martial schools originating from before 1600 that I am aware of (with the possible exception of my own LINK), karate, tai chi, or more recently aikido.
Consequently, I intend to write a standalone essay on this broader topic.
And so, for this essay I will confine myself to asking the reader again, if not the Method, what?
What I have described is surely almost entirely unfamiliar to any reader and I have admitted that none of it can be understood except through sufficient personal understanding of Hara.
However, what can be understood by the non-exponent is that if the Hara-driven concepts and phenomena that the Method involves are valid, then the Method does at least represent an overall practical solution—and a validation of Iai specifically.
Alternatively, as it is taught today, Iai simply cannot be justified as either a practical or effective tool for teaching combat readiness, whether in isolation or as part of the type of wider curriculum found in the extant period schools. In these essays I have definitively explained why this is so and in all my conversations, both private and public with expert students of these schools none have been able to provide a credible counter.
A very warrior-minded friend of mine who has as much experience in martial arts as I and considerably more real-world combat experiences said of Iai when he practiced it, “Sure, it was fun but I never thought it could be of much help in any swordfight.” This is the inevitable assessment of Iai by anyone who is able to view it objectively and who has understanding of close-combat realities.
Without the Method, Iai masters and their students must justify Iai’s existence and practice in ways that are as inventive as they are nonsensical on many different levels. Why these justifications are accepted today speaks to the characters of those that both teach Iai and those who study it.
How Iai (and the other martial systems mentioned) came to be so misunderstood is complex (but not complicated), but I shall mention only three factors here.
First, as I said in the previous essay the Method seems incredibly simple to anyone who has made sufficient progress in it. However, the Method is incredibly difficult to convey in words and indeed the intellectual awareness of the Method that comes from such an explanation is definitely not going to help a student’s progress, and in fact will most likely be detrimental to it. Consequently, the student of the Method receives virtually no verbal instruction as to how the Method (and Iai) aims to achieve its Purpose. Consequently, it was always going to be difficult—if not impossible—to make any money teaching Method-based Iai, but this has been greatly exacerbated by changes in society, first in Japan and then in the world as interest in Iai proliferated.
Secondly, developing Hara awareness in the context of combat training is both incredibly easy and incredibly challenging for the vast majority of individuals. To quote the great 20th century kendo master Morita Monjuro:
“It is difficult to keep in the standing position the power in the belly that you acquired in a sitting position. To achieve this takes a tremendous amount of time and effort.”
If maintaining Hara Awareness (because that is what he is referring to) when simply standing is such a Herculean task—which it is—then the reader should be able to grasp how exponentially more challenging it is during Iai, or partner training, or in combat.
And lastly, as I have attempted to explain above, the distinctive and iconic formal structure of Iai is almost entirely a reflection of its purpose in the context of the Method. However, it is a tragic irony that such a structure—and indeed the use of prescribed patterns of actions generally for martial arts—also makes misinterpretation and reinterpretation of its original necessity and purpose incredibly easy.
Phil Trent (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009132148739)
Introduction
koryu matters 